Not so long ago Tynan asked us about mortars, and the general consensus seemed to be "95% useless, luxury item for long term large colonies". Or at least that was my reading of the thread.
Then in the next patch we got:
"Buffed mortars so players use them: Cheaper/faster to build, faster shooting, greater accuracy, cheaper shells"
Shells still seem expensive, 10 Chemfuel and a steel, compared to the steel cost last time. My biggest cost here is time production. Time to fetch both ingredients Vs one, and then crank out a shell.
Firing rate still seems too slow for what it is, also accuracy still seems poor?
I just got attacked by a bunch of sappers so I grabbed some colonists and began to shoot at them, I had four tubes in action, and I also had three snipers firing at them. I'd credit the snipers with doing more damage than the mortars, and the snipers were a hell of a lot easier to produce.
So are the Mortars buffed enough or does the original verdict on them stand?
I'm not sure what did you expect. Sappers is a pretty fast attack. Mortars shine on larger maps, against slower enemies, raids that prepare to attack, on maps with snow or other slowing obstacles. Like with most things, it's good in some situations but not so good in others. Mortars are especially good against tribals and sieges. EMP mortars are good against mechs and sieges. It's just incendiary mortars that have no good use - I mean, you could fend off a siege with them, but not if there's no vegetation, not if it starts raining, etc. Why bother...
I am also interested in what people have to say about this.
We're also considering redesigning mortars so there's just one mortar building but different munitions for it. Just an idea right now.
Quote from: Tynan on July 05, 2017, 05:54:32 AM
I am also interested in what people have to say about this.
We're also considering redesigning mortars so there's just one mortar building but different munitions for it. Just an idea right now.
I can
totally get behind this potential change.
Quote from: Tynan on July 05, 2017, 05:54:32 AM
We're also considering redesigning mortars so there's just one mortar building but different munitions for it.
Yes please
I am a big fan of mortars personally, but I play huge maps and large colonies, so I often have lots of mortars firing in volleys. They are great for poison/psychic ships, and large raids usually end up with a large amount of bleeding and/or missing limbs before they are even halfway to me. Gives those irritating brawlers something to do while the real fighters work too.
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=33097.0
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=33121.0
Yes, mortars are good now against larger raids, mechanoids, manhunters... Especially if you have multiples firing at once.
Personally, id prefer direct fire cannons to be more helpful. That being said, mortars should have a range more along the lines of 2x sniper range, and target areas instead of pawns. Right now they are more like artillery pieces.
Direct fire targets pawns, indirect targets spaces. So if you know the path the enemy is going to take, you lay down a barrage for that space. This also helps to avoid friendly fire when the pawn your mortars gets too close to the rest of your pawns.
Quote from: Tynan on July 05, 2017, 05:54:32 AM
I am also interested in what people have to say about this.
We're also considering redesigning mortars so there's just one mortar building but different munitions for it. Just an idea right now.
YES. Do this, please.
Also, if some sort of battlefield-shaping effects could be added, that'd be a great, realistic addition that would add value; What I mean by this is if mortar fire would essentially interdict an area, perhaps for a brief period after impact, so enemy pawns would path around it, or that near misses would cause a panic effect similar to how pawns flee from hostile animals; Both of these additions would bring in-game usage of mortars more in line with real-world usage of artillery, less as a weapon to cause damage (though it's obviously highly capable of that) and more as a way to shape the battlefield.
Quote from: JimmyAgnt007 on July 05, 2017, 09:20:07 AM
Right now they are more like artillery pieces.
That is exactly what a mortar is. 'Direct fire' and 'mortar' shouldn't ever be used in the same sentence. Mortars, specifically, are always high-angle as well, whereas other types of artillery can fire low-angle (faster, less inaccuracy introduced by wind etc, but vulnerable to large obstacles.) and can even be used as direct fire weapons
in extremis.
I meant their power and range were more like arty than mortars.
From my experience mortars are good vs groups of 10 people upwards, any less and you might end up wasting shells and not get a single hit.
Before the rebalance I usually built around 6-8 mortars to get reliable hits with them, now I am usually content with 2-3 mortars, they are accurate enough to deal considerable damage to larger hordes like tribals. This was a raid of 60 tribals and I could considerably weaken them with 3 mortars before they attacked me ;D
https://images.discordapp.net/attachments/211583606232055809/325562492145106948/Mortarwork.jpg
Remember when reloading the mortar don't require a mortar shell (hence no cost)? Back than I will have as many mortars as I can operate and fire them all at once at those super large raid group. This create some kind of carpet bombing effect and it was super fun to watch for how bad ass it is. Also for its accuracy it was the only way to make it work. Ever since the introduction of mortar shell, that bit of fun is gone :-\.
The new mortar as of A17 is much more accurate, it is pretty good at weakening enemy raid group. For my settlement size of 12 I only need 4 mortars firing about 4~6 volleys when dealing with human raids. Also works very well in damaging the psychic ships hence forcing the mechanoid to attack, which in turn effectively separating the Scyther from the Centipede for a easier defending fight. It doesn't really help in damaging the mechanoid as it is pretty hard to hit them without damaging the psychic ship.
Overall the A17 mortar is more useful for its accuracy. You don't need to have 20+ man to make effective bombardment possible. However it is not as fun as the old mortar which is totally inaccurate but free of operating cost.
Quote from: Tynan on July 05, 2017, 05:54:32 AM
I am also interested in what people have to say about this.
We're also considering redesigning mortars so there's just one mortar building but different munitions for it. Just an idea right now.
This is a great idea! Some examples:
Basic Round (existing)
White phosphorus (based on Firefoam Poppers?)
EMP (late game?)
Smoke (based on Smokepop belt?)
Quote from: JimmyAgnt007 on July 05, 2017, 10:49:23 AM
I meant their power and range were more like arty than mortars.
I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that Rimworld mortars are too powerful and their range is too long? Artillery pieces (cannons) are typically larger than mortars, and have a longer range. Re-reading your previous comment, it also seems like you think they currently target pawns? As far as I recall (I've been off of gaming for a few weeks), they're targeted the same as grenades; You point them at a space on the ground, and then they hit somewhere in that vicinity, and have a blast radius; This is pretty much exactly how RL mortars and artillery pieces work, though IRL there's someone, a person or a machine (or both) doing some basic trig with direction and distance to determine the coordinates of desired impact, whereas the God's Eye View of Rimworld removes the tedium of doing the math.
Quote from: DariusWolfe on July 05, 2017, 02:00:42 PM
I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that Rimworld mortars are too powerful and their range is too long?
Yes, it seems that way to me.
Mortars that you see most commonly on screen are much smaller, man portable, pipes that you plant on the ground and target the enemy with. The bigger pieces you can build in RW are more like Artillery.
When you dont target them manually, do they not target enemy pawns? If the pawns are moving then they tend to miss a lot more. If they aimed ahead of the pawn it would work out better.
Ah, so you'd like variety in size of mortars? I'd be pretty okay with that as well, just as a former Artilleryman.
Mortars actually come in a variety of sizes (and have through pretty much their entire history). The most commonly used mortar by the U.S. Army these days is a 120mm mortar, which can be either man-portable (if you have literally a squad of people; 4-5 to carry the mortar itself, disassembled, the rest to carry rounds and provide security) or motorized, usually in a light tracked vehicle (M113 chassis, for those familiar). I think the Rimworld mortars are more in line with this latter version of the mortar, given that they're semi-static (or fully static? I'm using Miniaturization, so many things that are not normally replaceable are, in my game) emplacements.
The smaller mortars you're talking about often rely on the line-of-sight of the mortar team themselves, doing the basic trig I mentioned above, and firing indirectly at targets they can see. Larger mortars, like the 120mm I mentioned above, as well as actual artillery pieces, usually require forward observers transmitting coordinates to the mortar/artillery team.
Quote from: MrEprize on July 05, 2017, 11:32:25 AM
White phosphorus (based on Firefoam Poppers?)
White phosphorous is an incendiary projectile, so it would be the opposite of a firefoam popper. That said, an actual firefoam round would be neat so my colonists can put fires out from the comforts of their own home.
Quote from: Tynan on July 05, 2017, 05:54:32 AM
I am also interested in what people have to say about this.
We're also considering redesigning mortars so there's just one mortar building but different munitions for it. Just an idea right now.
Before i never use them, i logically through i was working like your describe. It could be a lovely improvement. Actually, when designing my mortar room, its a bit difficult. It need to be nearby in the middle ( cause min range) , very big to fit differents type of mortar. So a polyvalent mortars is welcome.
Incendary are usefull in the idea, as burning ennemies will arrive late and it can be usefull in battle cause it reduce their power.
But the random accuracy and long reload make it very poor.
My ideas to improve more:
- Make mortar a auto hauler job beetween battle so AI can prepare them to be ready for fire ( reach the 0 cooldown )
- The loading shell action should be after the cooldown and just before the aiming and can only be done when attacking ( who let an armed mortar during a year of peace ) This also will prevent waste of amo if you want to change the type of shell.
-Make travel time of shell almost instant and less acurate.
Curently of you fire the 1st ennemy of a mooving band, because of the time it take to reach the target, it make it land behind the last one. This is the main problem of mortar i beleve.
-I beleve mortar should have a primary aera of effect with main damage (smaller than now), and a secondary larger one that cause minor fragment damage but to many people (very low damage=
-Incendary shell: Work the same as normal shell, but make a bonus burning effect. But it will cost more ressources to build ( more chemfuel )
- Make mortars cost more, be polyvalent, shell travel a lot faster, increase fire rate, decrease precision, deal less damage but can critical if hit close to the pawn. Normal shell should cost less, incendary and emp should be expensive version ( same cost as now)
Quote from: Thraxon on July 05, 2017, 04:13:47 PM
But the random accuracy and long reload make it very poor.
This reminds me of another point I meant to make in my above post; The default reload time is kind of crazy. IRL, I can tell you for a fact that it's possible to fire a full-blown artillerypiece (which is much more complex than a mortar) 3-6 times in a minute. I don't think Rimworld mortars need to fire that fast, but I just want to make the point; Reloading and firing is actually super quick. What takes time (sometimes a LOT of time) is re-orienting the gun, acquiring a new target.
So my suggestion is this: When firing at a fixed point, reloading should be considerably faster. If you re-orient to a new target, it should take considerably longer. This will encourage more strategic use of mortars on the defense, using them more to target fixed positions (say, ahead of an oncoming horde) and less for spray-and-pray targeting.
In combination with the above, a toggle to group mortars into batteries that fire in unison would be outstanding.
Balance-wise, this would definitely make mortars perhaps a bit too powerful for offensive engagements against enemy bases, or when dealing with enemy sieges, but from what I gather from the comments of those who use them regularly, they're already super powerful in these circumstances, so the boost in effectiveness from a faster fire rate may not matter much in the long run.
Quote from: Tynan on July 05, 2017, 05:54:32 AM
I am also interested in what people have to say about this.
We're also considering redesigning mortars so there's just one mortar building but different munitions for it. Just an idea right now.
Im for this.
I would also like to see auto-turrets become turret mounts that you can install certain weapons onto, rather than just having a single type of turret.(with auto and manned variants)
As for how good I think mortars are... I think it depends on what they are used for.
Currently I only use them to counter sieges or other enemy events that involve the enemy trying to wait you out. I feel like even just 1 mortar is good against an enemy siege. Especially if you are under a mountain. Because you only have to damage them a bit to get them to switch to a direct assault into your kill zone.
Quote from: Listy on July 05, 2017, 04:41:13 AM
Not so long ago Tynan asked us about mortars, and the general consensus seemed to be "95% useless, luxury item for long term large colonies". Or at least that was my reading of the thread.
Then in the next patch we got:
"Buffed mortars so players use them: Cheaper/faster to build, faster shooting, greater accuracy, cheaper shells"
Shells still seem expensive, 10 Chemfuel and a steel, compared to the steel cost last time. My biggest cost here is time production. Time to fetch both ingredients Vs one, and then crank out a shell.
Firing rate still seems too slow for what it is, also accuracy still seems poor?
I just got attacked by a bunch of sappers so I grabbed some colonists and began to shoot at them, I had four tubes in action, and I also had three snipers firing at them. I'd credit the snipers with doing more damage than the mortars, and the snipers were a hell of a lot easier to produce.
So are the Mortars buffed enough or does the original verdict on them stand?
Your reading of the thread was correct. It said 95% useless.
Probably because 95% of posters do not play on settings where mortars came into their own.
They were fine before - just little use until you started seeing large enough raids to warrant them. Even before the buff, I could interrupt an enemy siege setting up with just 2 incendiary mortars.
With both the slight accuracy buff and the much faster firing rate, they are effectively double the firepower they were before. Probably overpowered in the same way mass turrets are if you play on settings that give extremely large raids.
10 chemfuel 1 steel is now mind bogglingly cheap once you have the ability to make it. What is that... 1 tile of corn harvested turned into fuel?
I just watched a stream where 4 mortars took out a 100+ sapper raid before they even mined into the base.... :-X
But once again.. forum ebola triumphs. "If I never need to use an item because I never play on a sufficiently challenging setting to need to, then no one else ever uses them either, right?"
Once again we get the response: "buncha noobs ruining the game; git gud noobs"
Never mind the fact that many of the people who have commented are anything but noobs. But then, I guess some posters just assume that Tynan has no brain or spine, and doesn't make his own decisions, after soliciting feedback. Working from that assumption, any choice you don't agree with is stupidity, and any choice you agree with is just dumb luck.
Quote from: Tynan on July 05, 2017, 05:54:32 AM
We're also considering redesigning mortars so there's just one mortar building but different munitions for it. Just an idea right now.
Different types of shell that act like the current HE shell would be very useful and give us more defence options. Defence does seem to be the one thing you hate to add though.
Quote from: DariusWolfe on July 05, 2017, 04:26:06 PM
Quote from: Thraxon on July 05, 2017, 04:13:47 PM
But the random accuracy and long reload make it very poor.
This reminds me of another point I meant to make in my above post; The default reload time is kind of crazy. IRL, I can tell you for a fact that it's possible to fire a full-blown artillerypiece (which is much more complex than a mortar) 3-6 times in a minute. I don't think Rimworld mortars need to fire that fast, but I just want to make the point; Reloading and firing is actually super quick. What takes time (sometimes a LOT of time) is re-orienting the gun, acquiring a new target.
So my suggestion is this: When firing at a fixed point, reloading should be considerably faster. If you re-orient to a new target, it should take considerably longer. This will encourage more strategic use of mortars on the defense, using them more to target fixed positions (say, ahead of an oncoming horde) and less for spray-and-pray targeting.
In combination with the above, a toggle to group mortars into batteries that fire in unison would be outstanding.
As a former German Artillerist myself :
from bottom to top :
The faster firing also would deplete the Ammo Stockpiles of the Invaders faster, so it balances itself pretty quick.
The Targeting of Tank Artillery got a lot faster since they implement a modified Tank targeting System now ( at least with the PZH2000 in Germany, which uses a modified LeopardII / Abrams targeting )
On Speed : In prepared positions up to 10 shells per Minute can be possible as a first strike.
For sustained fire 4-6 shells are the rule to keep the crews and ammo stocks from being depleted to fast.
I think hand operated pipes are a bit slower than that. And I have no clue about actual mobile Mortar pieces.
Quote from: SpaceDorf on July 06, 2017, 07:25:04 AM
As a former German Artillerist myself :
from bottom to top :
The faster firing also would deplete the Ammo Stockpiles of the Invaders faster, so it balances itself pretty quick.
True enough, but it would also do the same amount of damage in that time to stationary targets; dropping a target point in the middle of a base, combined with the built-in scatter range means you'd be able to hit most of the base area. Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing artillery excels at, so it makes sense; The question is how balanced it would be.
Quote
The Targeting of Tank Artillery got a lot faster since they implement a modified Tank targeting System now ( at least with the PZH2000 in Germany, which uses a modified LeopardII / Abrams targeting )
As a former Abrams tanker (yes, I did that too; I jumped around a bit during my military career; I'm currently IT) I'm confused... are you including direct fire cannons in with artillery? Is that how they classify armor in Germany? In the U.S. we classify tanks as heavy cavalry, because the mission of a tank is direct engagement, whereas artillery (and mortars) is intended as a support system. While I wouldn't mind seeing a direct-fire cannon in Rimworld, with balance considerations, I think talking about tanks kind of muddies the conversation.
QuoteOn Speed : In prepared positions up to 10 shells per Minute can be possible as a first strike.
For sustained fire 4-6 shells are the rule to keep the crews and ammo stocks from being depleted to fast.
I think hand operated pipes are a bit slower than that. And I have no clue about actual mobile Mortar pieces.
My hands-on experience with being being the gun in artillery is limited to that one time I did it in training. As a former tank loader, I had a bit of an edge on my colleagues, despite the mechanism being extremely different (load the round, ram it; load the powder, ram it, place the blasting cap, hook up the cable, wait for the command, pull) and was able to put 6 rounds downrange in about a minute; More experienced artillerymen can probably do better, but they did mention that overheating of the tube was a concern for firing too fast.
Regarding automatic vs hand-load, I'd actually be surprised if automatic loading (which isn't a thing on any American artillery pieces that I know of) were faster than hand-loading. When I was going through training as a tanker, they told us about foreign tanks with autoloaders, and they were considerably slower than our required load time; The less sophisticated ones required you to rotate the turret to a specific angle; Even the more efficient ones required you to hold the gun at a specific elevation, which cuts down on time to target.
While the artillery loading process is much more involved and requires a team of several people (unload the round from the case, stage it for the loader, count the number/size of powder bags, prep and stage for the loader, and then the actual loading process)
mortars are actually much simpler; It's a single, self-contained round. On older, smaller mortar systems, the round is dropped into the tube, and impact with the bottom sets the round off, but I think the larger ones work differently; My direct mortar experience is limited to talking with a mortarman buddy of mine during the late 90s, who used both the 120mm motorized mortars, and the man-carried 120mms at different times in his career.
Yanno, that makes me think that weight might be a balancing factor. I don't recall how much mortar rounds weigh in Rimworld, but I know that a single dude's not carrying more than a few of them at a time. If stack size for mortar rounds was reduced to, say, 5-10 I think that might offset the faster firing speed I mentioned above.
Let me put it that way: I use mortars as soon as I researched them.
Sometimes, they wreck a siege with a lucky hit, sometimes they wreck an incoming raid with a good hit, and sometimes they just waste their ammunition.
If you want to use them: do so, if not, don't. I'd love to see them in later versions too, not perfect yet still devastating if they hit. It's a good balance.
Regarding shell costs: buy them off traders, saves lots of hassle.
Quote from: DariusWolfe on July 06, 2017, 09:30:58 AM
True enough, but it would also do the same amount of damage in that time to stationary targets; dropping a target point in the middle of a base, combined with the built-in scatter range means you'd be able to hit most of the base area. Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing artillery excels at, so it makes sense; The question is how balanced it would be.
The shooting stops earlier, so you got less time to run for cover ( overhead mountain ), but more time to firefight and repair.
For Balance .. this kind of bombardment could actually destroy quite a bit of equipment and buildings in your base.
Quote
As a former Abrams tanker (yes, I did that too; I jumped around a bit during my military career; I'm currently IT) I'm confused... are you including direct fire cannons in with artillery? Is that how they classify armor in Germany? In the U.S. we classify tanks as heavy cavalry, because the mission of a tank is direct engagement, whereas artillery (and mortars) is intended as a support system. While I wouldn't mind seeing a direct-fire cannon in Rimworld, with balance considerations, I think talking about tanks kind of muddies the conversation.
No we use armor quite the same way. I myself was stationed with a Mobile Artillery Battalion near Baumholder in 2000, still equipped with M-109s and some M-113's ( the former is a 155m Artillery Tank, weighing about 25t empty, the second is Command and Fire Control ) Handloaded, with technical aid ( the newest upgrade ::) ) and for some very high shot-vectors the pipe had to be brought down again to reload, but not always.
We were also a Teaching Batallion, which means we were shooting quite a lot, mainly on Officers and Officers in Training in Bunkers :) Our Battery was about 2 Platoons in Troops, 8 Tanks, 4 APCs, some Scout Jeeps and Trucks.
The Point about the Tank-Targetting System was that .. for one .. yes Tank Artillery is capable of direct fire, just slower, compared to real Mortars, which are not capable of this, but also have a higher yield and calibre ( I don't think the german army has any of those left )
For the new Armored Artillery the Targeting System was modified so it was able to calculate targets for indirect fire. Either by map, transmitted or on sight. The Tower is reinforced like a tank and moved electronicly instead of hand driven and the Axis from which it can fire is enhanced to quite a few degrees in the front and back. Firing at the side is still a bad idea :).
So the actual targeting speed improved to .. target aquired .. punch button .. wait .. fire ..
( I have to confess, I have a bit trouble translating, the german word Panzer translates into both words Armor and Tank )
Quote
It's a single, self-contained round. On older, smaller mortar systems, the round is dropped into the tube, and impact with the bottom sets the round off, but I think the larger ones work differently; My direct mortar experience is limited to talking with a mortarman buddy of mine during the late 90s, who used both the 120mm motorized mortars, and the man-carried 120mms at different times in his career.
Yanno, that makes me think that weight might be a balancing factor. I don't recall how much mortar rounds weigh in Rimworld, but I know that a single dude's not carrying more than a few of them at a time. If stack size for mortar rounds was reduced to, say, 5-10 I think that might offset the faster firing speed I mentioned above.
I only remember the weight of our shells. Which was about 40-50kg ( 80-100pound I guess ) plus about 5-10kg ( now I am guessing ) of powder bags.
I think Mortars use electric ignition because heat based would be stupid if you have to drop the ammo through a heated pipe. But yes, a Mortar should be even faster to reload than a Artillery Piece. Armored or Not.
From a raw balance POV one operator doesn't make much sense. I know a fixed system >can< technically be operated by a single person but I also imagine getting 4-6 shells/min would be nearly impossible long term.
Wouldn't it be better overall for it to be a very powerful variable system which required 3 pawns to operate? Have it capable of laying down a significant area barrage with a cooldown to "retarget" a new area? Perhaps even requiring a zone or construction project to "dial in" a fixed area?
Additionally while I've never personally operated a fixed mortar(awesomely some players have though!) I do know that skill with a rifle would not give you skill with a mortar emplacement. It might do to add a new skill for balance reasons.
Quote from: Nafensoriel on July 06, 2017, 04:01:06 PM
From a raw balance POV one operator doesn't make much sense. I know a fixed system >can< technically be operated by a single person but I also imagine getting 4-6 shells/min would be nearly impossible long term.
Wouldn't it be better overall for it to be a very powerful variable system which required 3 pawns to operate? Have it capable of laying down a significant area barrage with a cooldown to "retarget" a new area? Perhaps even requiring a zone or construction project to "dial in" a fixed area?
Additionally while I've never personally operated a fixed mortar(awesomely some players have though!) I do know that skill with a rifle would not give you skill with a mortar emplacement. It might do to add a new skill for balance reasons.
Yeah long term realistic, speaking in hours when sieging, is 3-4 per minute or less with switching between vehicles and personel and even Platoons for sustained fire instead of directed salvos.
But this more strategic and psychologic warfare than damage .. the big boy version of cover fire.
All I know about Mobile Mortars I know from John Ringo's Books .. but I think it is similiar to Armored Artillery
There a tank crew consists of 6 People, Commander, Driver, 2 Loaders, and 2 for preparation and hauling the shells.
In addition to 4 people doing target calculations.
The actual target correction is done by a Spotter or Troops near the target.
If one skill should influence mortar fire it should be the Science skill. calculating map coordinates into flight pathes and time, correcting for weather and surrounding elevations and distance, turning this into a vector for the gun, adjust the amount of powder based on temperature and distance .. ( effective range for Armored Artillery is about 30km or 20 miles and a radius of 10-30 meters counts as on target ... well considering that this radius is hit by up to four 50kg shells in one strike and between 12-20 more in the following minute )
I think the muzzle velocity of tank ammo in general is lower than that of guns so if I guesstimate flighttime for a grenade over 28km at a muzzle velocity of 500 m/s the time would be about 56 seconds. Direct flight path.
A balistic flightpath is of course a bit longer. Including the speed variation of the grenade through rising, falling and air friction I would add a good 15 to 30 seconds to this.
The main difference between artillery and mortars is the flight trajectory. Artillery is able to shoot in high or low trajectory and in times even direct fire ( which artillery men prefer not to do .. because this means the enemy can see them too .. )
Mortar ( as far as I know ) only shoot in high trajectory which has by definition a bigger miss radius, because the shell takes a sharper turn on the highpoint of the trajectory and is therefore less predictable.
They have a lower muzzle velocity and shorter tubes but make up for it in a bigger payload.
In this case, I think gameplay trumps realism; To be quite frank, a single mortar system isn't really a threat to anyone, unless you've got the gods themselves guiding your rounds on target. Requiring more than 1 pawn to operate would mean that you'd almost never have more than 1 (maybe 2 in a large colony) firing. Realism, in this case, isn't fun. So we say that these mortars are considerably more sophisticated in terms of automation than real world ones, allowing a single pawn to effectively operate them.
Regarding the appropriate skill to operate one... Honestly, the Intellectual skill would make a lot of sense. Even with the machine doing a lot of the work, I imagine that, aside from the physical action of loading a round, most of the operations involve punching buttons and twisting dials, trying to get the right combination of direction and elevation to put rounds on target.
Regarding fire rate: 3-6 rounds/minute is realistic, but it's not necessarily a good rate for the game, where hours pass in a matter of seconds, even on normal speeds. If the Rimworld wiki is still correct, the fire rate for the mortar is slightly faster than 1 round/hour, in-game. I think, if the target isn't repositioned, you could cut this in half, and double this for reacquiring a new target and have a good balance.
I don't think the mortar should be more accurate, at all, even when firing on a fixed target point. I actually think the mortar could afford to be slightly
less accurate, with one important caveat: If another pawn has Line of Sight (say, maybe w/in sniper range) on the target, then the accuracy is improved. So mortars with a forward observer and a fixed target position would be both faster and more accurate; This would give the target (us or them) something to shoot at in order to reduce the mortar fire's accuracy. You could even increase accuracy with subsequent volleys, so long as the observer is still present; Losing the observer would drop accuracy back to base, though, even if the observer only temporarily broke LoS
Combined with changing the mortars to be a single platform with different shells (with a additional time cost to switch between rounds), this would completely change the mortar game. This would still make it practical to have different guns set to fire different ammo, but it would also allow the flexibility to fire multiple round types before you get a larger firing battery, or to use a multi-stage strategy (Shake and bake, baby!) with your artillery.
So to summarize my various comments, here are the changes I'd like to see:
- One gun, multiple round types
- faster firing for a fixed target, longer retargeting interval
- less base accuracy, increased accuracy when another pawn has LoS
- the ability to group mortars into firing groups
It seems like mortars are currently best against Very Large Raids. Without weakening that purpose, how could they be made useful against raids of 15-20? As inaccurate, Area of Effect weapons (even now, they miss most shots), they will always have effectiveness scaling with the number of targets. Anything done with the power or cost to make them useful against medium raids will make them completely nutty against big raids.
(Aside: I generally do tribal starts, and I get all my mortars from siege attempts that I clobber with my alpaca hordes. Does anyone else do that?)
If my ideas were implemented, I think they'd be considerably less effective (in terms of damage) against moving groups. Using the area denial and panic effects I suggested early on in the thread would still allow them to be effective in shaping the battle against these groups, and devastating if you can pin them down to a single location, but otherwise you wouldn't be as capable of eradicating large groups with mortar fire.
Would increasing accuracy over time help?
Here's some random numbers to illustrate the idea, and not final numbers, but even as I say this I know someone will fly off the handle and say "I'm wrong and here's why":
Rnd 1: say 50% accuracy
Rnd 2: +10%, so 60% total accuracy
Rnd 3: +10%, so 70% accuracy
And so forth.
This could be explained by ranging in, it would also mean that long drawn out engagements (IE: agaisnt larger enemy groups) are easier, but how many sieges do you get form tribes? It'd also allow the mortars to become more dangerous.
I Say this because in my earlier use against the sap the first rounded landed bang on target in the middle of the group, and not a lot happened. Damage should be down agaisnt high end enemies with Power armour and shields, but only a couple of hostiles had that level of protection.
I would not even as a cheaper system I didn't build mortars for quite some time until everything else my base needed had been finished.
- Implementing single mortar with different shell types would lead to more experimentation among players, and would enable exotic mortar shells like Doomsday Shell.
- Manually setting targets is more accurate than leaving pawns on auto. Why not make mortar operators lead moving targets ?
- The deadlier you make mortars, the more dangerous sieges will become. People already complain that you must build under a mountain to survive sieges (which is not true). Building sparse bases with separate houses also works. Striking quickly also works. Shooting your own mortars also works. But either way a mortar barrage should be survivable.
Two mortar tips (exploits ?)
1. Mortars act like IED traps with bait. Enemies will come to attack them in melee, and they explode, even unloaded. And it's currently the only way to get an EMP IED trap.
2. You can throw resources at the problem to improve rate of fire. Most of the downtime is due to a pawn waiting at a mortar to reload. You can build more mortars than you have operators. You can fire a salvo and send them to already loaded mortars. This is really not so hard to accomplish considering you can acquire 2 mortars from each siege.
My Mortar park consists of 2 EMP, 2 standard and 1 Incendiary.
The idea of generic mortar different ammo types would save space and as mortars are not considered pretty to look at it would be good if they didn't take up as much space.
My EMP mortars are the most critical for me as I use them to take care of downed ships (Poison and Psychic).
I think the tweaks from A16 to A17 were good anything more could start to be unbalancing.
FWIW I just read thru this thread & most of my mortar concerns have been answered above
- Include an optional loader spot to make reloading faster
- Include an optional spotter (maybe if they hold fire they can focus) to increase accuracy - a way to (mis)use shoddy sniper rifles?
- Include some sort of training requirement for the gunner: science is good (to increase accuracy) & maybe ToT speed when adjusting aim
I emphasise /improvised!/ The current setup STM to be based on the old WW2-style man-carried mortar tubes, which ideally needed a 3-man team: gunner, spotter & loader. They could function perfectly well /after setup/ at a reduced RoF & accuracy with only 1 man (min 2 were needed for effective - read 'timely' IG - mobile setup because of the mass transported), but were far more effective with teams of 3 /if no direct LoS/. Ideally there'd be a squad/platoon commander too (to handle comms & prioritise targets), but IG /you/ are their commander..
Remember, /improvised/ mortars (like improvised turrets) are not cannon; they're ballistic-only artillery. They need a spotter to observe fall of shot & correct as appropriate. IRA (I use the term generically, including all paramilitary forces on either side) used them to reasonable effect in their attacks (mortars improvised from gas cylinders) in the ~'65-'95 'Troubles' <hah!> with several effective hits, including Downing St. They used vans with cut-out roofs to minimise transportation of mass problems & set them off remotely, but were effective nonetheless.. /against fixed targets!/
WRT the shells I completely agree with Tynan's proposed idea of having 1 mortar 'building' & different ammo: far more realistic!
WRT the scarcity of chemfuel for HE/incendiary rounds (prior to deep drilling/refinery), why can't we harvest boomalopes/boomrats for their fuel? That was what they were bred for according to lore..
Quote from: Snafu_RW on July 07, 2017, 07:06:46 PM
WRT the scarcity of chemfuel for HE/incendiary rounds (prior to deep drilling/refinery), why can't we harvest boomalopes/boomrats for their fuel? That was what they were bred for according to lore..
Off topic I know but maybe milking them for chemfuel??
I only use my mortars against Alphabeavers
Quote from: Vlad0mi3r on July 08, 2017, 04:25:53 AM
Quote from: Snafu_RW on July 07, 2017, 07:06:46 PM
WRT the scarcity of chemfuel for HE/incendiary rounds (prior to deep drilling/refinery), why can't we harvest boomalopes/boomrats for their fuel? That was what they were bred for according to lore..
Off topic I know but maybe milking them for chemfuel??
I actually like the harvest idea better.
But make it a research tech. A tech that allows you to slaughter Boomalopes/rats without causing them to detonate, and makes it so chemfuel will drop in small amounts when you slaughter them.
Quote from: erdrik on July 08, 2017, 05:35:26 AM
I actually like the harvest idea better.
But make it a research tech. A tech that allows you to slaughter Boomalopes/rats without causing them to detonate, and makes it so chemfuel will drop in small amounts when you slaughter them.
Yep I could see how that could work. I just thought it would be funny if you had all these small amounts of chemfuel everywhere (Like you end up with milk left in the field) and you get a raid that sets everything on fire. Left over chemfuel going off, boom rats and Boomalopes blowing up because of the fires.
Randy would love it I'm sure ;)
Quote from: Vlad0mi3r on July 08, 2017, 07:02:36 AM
Quote from: erdrik on July 08, 2017, 05:35:26 AM
I actually like the harvest idea better.
But make it a research tech. A tech that allows you to slaughter Boomalopes/rats without causing them to detonate, and makes it so chemfuel will drop in small amounts when you slaughter them.
Yep I could see how that could work. I just thought it would be funny if you had all these small amounts of chemfuel everywhere (Like you end up with milk left in the field) and you get a raid that sets everything on fire. Left over chemfuel going off, boom rats and Boomalopes blowing up because of the fires.
Randy would love it I'm sure ;)
There is a Mod for that :)
I just thought of another thing :
a mortar emplacement. A smaller version of the mortars, similiar to the manned mortars known from Movies.
With a similiar range to rocket launchers or sniper rifles. And able to fire over walls like the Big Mortars.
Still using Shells. Also expand the shell concept to rocket launchers. I really hate the concept of one-shot weapons.
My two cents, largely in line with others have said:
- Building one mortar but having different ammo types would be much better than building muiltple types of mortar gun.
- accuracy as it is now is fine in my opinion. The accuracy at the moment means they are not overpowered, but when they do strike successfully they can be devastating.
- As suggested above, accuracy and reload time should improve over multiple shots to same fixed location. If you have to aim elsewhere then the accuracy and reload time should return to normal.
Some additional suggested changes:
- Change name of current mortar to 'Artillery'. Im not a military expert like others on the forum but the current gun fires and acts more like artillery than a mortar imo.
- Create a new weapon for pawns to carry which is a true mortar (i.e. high arc, long range weapon but much less range than the artillery, less powerful than artillery, not overly accurate unless the pawn has exceptional Shooting Skill). In terms of how the gun would work with the game mechanics just think frag grenades but firing over longer distance.
- Rival factions that are seiging the settlement are a bit dumb if under current mortar fire. if they are preparing and you start bombing the hell out of them first, they just hover there awaiting their doom. I'm not sure how best to address this, because if they were to flee in terror or panic as suggested above then current mortars are pretty worthless after the first shot unless their accuracy is increased, but then that will make them too powerful.
Quote from: corestandeven on July 08, 2017, 11:12:25 AM
My two cents, largely in line with others have said:
- Building one mortar but having different ammo types would be much better than building muiltple types of mortar gun.
- accuracy as it is now is fine in my opinion. The accuracy at the moment means they are not overpowered, but when they do strike successfully they can be devastating.
- As suggested above, accuracy and reload time should improve over multiple shots to same fixed location. If you have to aim elsewhere then the accuracy and reload time should return to normal.
Some additional suggested changes:
- Change name of current mortar to 'Artillery'. Im not a military expert like others on the forum but the current gun fires and acts more like artillery than a mortar imo.
- Create a new weapon for pawns to carry which is a true mortar (i.e. high arc, long range weapon but much less range than the artillery, less powerful than artillery, not overly accurate unless the pawn has exceptional Shooting Skill). In terms of how the gun would work with the game mechanics just think frag grenades but firing over longer distance.
- Rival factions that are seiging the settlement are a bit dumb if under current mortar fire. if they are preparing and you start bombing the hell out of them first, they just hover there awaiting their doom. I'm not sure how best to address this, because if they were to flee in terror or panic as suggested above then current mortars are pretty worthless after the first shot unless their accuracy is increased, but then that will make them too powerful.
Pretty good suggestions.
Siegers should attack when taking to many casualties, before they flee.
The good thing about Mortars is, that they spread out the damage done to the enemy so damage enough at the same time, they rather flee than attack.
That is one of the viable tactics against sieges anyway .. just hurt the siegers, but don't kill them, so you don't get attacked by the remaining healthy ones but rather create a a bunch of wounded and crippled enemies.
Quote from: Snafu_RW on July 07, 2017, 07:06:46 PM
- Include an optional spotter (maybe if they hold fire they can focus) to increase accuracy - a way to (mis)use shoddy sniper rifles?
Suggestions that involve a spotter would make it play much like a variant of sniper rifle... and you literally brought a sniper rifle into that. This is odd, because no doubt a scope or binoculars is easier to obtain than a whole sniper rifle. For better or worse, having no visual contact with enemy is one of things that makes mortars distinct relative to other combat mechanics.
Mortars are relatively interesting because they're usable by people who are less physically capable or can't aim a gun very well. It gives these pawns something to do to defend the colony. A spotter would naturally compete with snipers. He would need relatively good movement to run away, but inability to shoot. This could make mortars even more niche because there would be even fewer colonists who should use them.
Finally, realism. The kind of realism you describe is fine in military units, which commonly consist of hundreds and more soldiers. Diverting 3, or even 2 people to mortar duty is a completely different story in a game which tends to top around 15.
Maybe if you could link more mortars to the same spotter. Otherwise, it would be terrifying to use more than 1 mortar at once. You would have to
appoint volunteers to serve as spotters.
Mortar spotters is something raider AI would have a very hard time understanding, but perhaps this is what this game needs. Mortars that are good against raiders, but relatively poor against player colony.
Realism in military Units also means, everybody who is able to communicate with the mortar/artillery team is a spotter.
Artillery means fire support from afar and never engages the enemy on their own, but supports a front trop, which in this case also acts as a spotter.
To weaken the enemy before a charge, to cover a retreat or to take out targets to heavy or big for the infantry.
So pawns having contact with the enemy should greatly increase the accuracy of your mortars ..
the negative side-effect is allready included.
You need pawns in contact with the enemy ..
And finally I think mortars should benefit from some skill .. be it crafting, construction or science .. like all other weapons do.
Or speaking realism : one guy manning a targetting console, aiming and firing the connected mortars .. and some other pawn/s feed shells into the mortars ..
Quote from: b0rsuk on July 09, 2017, 02:40:01 AM
Suggestions that involve a spotter would make it play much like a variant of sniper rifle... and you literally brought a sniper rifle into that. This is odd, because no doubt a scope or binoculars is easier to obtain than a whole sniper rifle. For better or worse, having no visual contact with enemy is one of things that makes mortars distinct relative to other combat mechanics.
I was simply making use of what's already available (snipers tend to work in teams of 2: 1 spotter, 1 gunner). I'd like to have some sort of enhanced vision device other than PA helmets/bionic eyes available (eg scope, binos etc) as equipment rather than taking a slot for clothing/wep, but that's not currently available :(
QuoteMaybe if you could link more mortars to the same spotter. Otherwise, it would be terrifying to use more than 1 mortar at once. You would have to appoint volunteers to serve as spotters.
Any spotter, given comms (perhaps reduced during a solar flare event), should be able to link to any mortar/turret, or multiples thereof. Provided they don't give away their position by attacking the target(s) they should be fairly safe until detected..
Honestly would you really even need a spotter? This is home turf we are talking about.. with any significant amount of time there it wouldn't be unheard of to have mapped out likely approach lanes and precalculated the math. This is why I still kind of like the zone targeting method. If we could lay down a grid it would open up a ton of options especially with things like incendiary rounds. To give a rough example instead of just mortaring the crap out of a raiding force you could draw a few 5x20 lines of fire in the raids path and force them into a more favorable position for your pawns. Just have the shell pick a random spot in the grid to land and have all skill checks relate to firing speed and risk of over/undershooting the grid.
Mortars, right now, don't feel terribly useful. It's a large investment of colony money or colony materials for a weapon that's only really useful against large bases. Given that, I haven't found enemy camps big or well fortified enough that a mortar attack was really justified. Also, incendiaries while potentially devastating have a pretty large chance to drift off course into a loot room.
Overall, I feel that colonists are better equip with sniper rifles. Not to say that sniper rifles are overpowered, but they're just cheaper and more practical and flexible in most situations when compared to a static, expensive-to-shoot artillery piece.
I'm not sure how to go about balancing that. IRL mortars were best used with huge stockpiles of ammo, but given the direction with farming, it seems RimWorld tends away from making it easy to have large stockpiles of valuable material (like mortar shells). This contrasts against the suppression/area destruction purpose of the mortar. An increase in damage, accuracy, area of effect, or other simple stuff like that doesn't feel like the right fix here.
Sometimes I can have snapper spawning from location that is really close to my base. I only have enough time to fire a volley of mortar fire before they reach my line of defense. In cases like that it usually comes down to which side get to fire their doomsday rocket launcher first. It is kind of ridiculous that the raider can sometime brings in 5+ doomsday rocket launchers and triple rocket launchers.
Last time the raider decided to gang up on my thrumbo and it gets completely surrounded. I use my mortars on the raiders while they are busy meleeing my thrumbo. The one shot that landed right at the center of the group pretty much get them all. I patch up my thrumbo and he has a full recovery.
Mortars are in a weird place now. For most of the game that's challenging, they're pretty crappy. Despite the accuracy buff they hit too wildly to even reliably damage something you need damaged. Stationary targets like mech ships and "prepare then attack" raids have other, less tech-expensive methods to handle them safely. Similarly, early-mid game sappers can breach 2-3 layers of wall before mortars do anything significant, so the player needs other ways to handle those.
Their best mid-game use is vs sieges, which I see often carrying 1-3 snipers to cover them lately. It is possible to break these with snipers + angling away from enemy snipers, or with bolt-action/AR and abusing cover --> shoot --> duck or pre-building random walls/doors near map edge, but mortars are a safe and effective option that don't need much accuracy to cause disruption.
As the game drags on, if the player doesn't launch a ship or migrate wealth accumulation allows for enormous raids. Once there are dozens of raiders on the board, the odds of firing a mortar shell and not hitting some of them are pretty low, even if they attack immediately (assuming you loaded the mortars before the raid), and the blast radius means you'll do some real damage.
Similarly, miniguns mulching down a corridor shine a lot better in mid-late game, where numbers entering the corridor allow them to get close to that "optimal" dps in the wiki (firing staggered with 6-10 miniguns into a crowd can cause 200+ DPS, I don't think any number of raiders can enter an area faster than that drops them, even with shields).
Quote from: Tynan on July 05, 2017, 05:54:32 AM
I am also interested in what people have to say about this.
We're also considering redesigning mortars so there's just one mortar building but different munitions for it. Just an idea right now.
I have mortar shell production down to a science: chemfuel on one stool, iron on the other. Drop shells on floor, you can churn them out.
They're really so inaccurate you have to use them en-masse to really do in a raid. They're great for the raiders (they can't miss something useful in your colony so they do their job of making you leave the killbox and come find the raiders) but for the colony itself I really think they're borderline useless.
I would make them slightly more accurate (less preferred) or up the explosion size a lot and add more fire to it (more preferred). The latter would make mortars used against you a lot scarier.
Incendiary mortar would be good if it actually spread flammable liquid that burn regardless of the tile it falls on - not just a flaming explosion that will set a tree on fire, but an actual flaming sea that persists for a while. A fire wall, if you will.
Last I check the game automatically start raining if you use multiple incendiary mortars in a single volley. Has this been fixed?
Something that needs to be kept in mind. Motors are a no risk weapon. Ill gladly spend the resources on mortor shells to kill ships if it means i dont lose some of my best people to 4+ centipedes. That said, i think one more slight* buff is necessary. Either another straight accuracy buff, or my personal favorite, the sustained fire buff. When shooting a ship whose targets include a hit box of around a 15x15 area, and still missing 6 or more shots in a row sucks. That said also keep in mind that buffs like this will also affect seigers. So! If it were my game, i would buff two things: sustained fire accuracy of mortors and seiges to make disrupting them with rifles a lot harder. Perhaps have them not onle build their sandbags defenses, but send a few men as a van against your people; that way as you approach, your forced to kill a few men before even stopping the actual people building and firing the mortars
Quote from: Tynan on July 05, 2017, 05:54:32 AM
I am also interested in what people have to say about this.
We're also considering redesigning mortars so there's just one mortar building but different munitions for it. Just an idea right now.
Oh, I would LOVE this. Having to build three different mortars to have all three ammo types - and thus have three different mortars for every single mortar of firepower I want... ugh.
Just having a single mortar where, when manned, i choose the ammo type? Way, way better. You'd just research and build the appropriate ammo.
Definitely on board with this idea.
in my personal opinion, mortars need a full rework, i find it very difficult to land a single deadly hit (tho majority of the time the raids are all brawlers with sheilds) however i wouldn't mind a more accurate mortar
Quote from: ARiA1089 on July 12, 2017, 11:14:37 AM
in my personal opinion, mortars need a full rework, [...]however i wouldn't mind a more accurate mortar
About the rework, I agree, but I'd go totally otherwise. The Point of artillery(or mortar) is that they can dish heavy damage on a long range, but they don't have any precision on their own. I wouldn't take that away from them.
By now we try to work against the low accuracy with big volleys, which is simply better hit-change at higher costs. With the last patch acc was buffed to prevent people stack too much mortars because of ..boring.
I would suggest to go vice versa:
First, split Mortar and Artillery:
It's confusing by its name and its values. A mortar should be a transportable weapon, with high, but limited range, like a rocket launcher but without projectile collisions, used for hit and run on entrenched targets.
The current Mortar should be named into artillery and defined as follow:
1. higher cost/maintain: Its a big umoveable machine, that should be something special as it is a powerful one
2. Reduce firing speed: I think 4-10x aim/reload time would be fine. By this its not aconstant fireing, but when the bullet flies, Pawns will hide. It also could make a siege take serveral days, which feels for me mich more authentic
3. Make ammo types more relevant: a) The explosive thingy should do more damage (not bigger splat). So, when a explosive lands, there is a hole in whatever ever was below that ting
b) EMP should interrupt(maybe destroy?) electric wires and interrupt electric things effectively in common.
c) Fire should cause Fire. If there is a incenary bomb dropping in my base, there should be a fire. A real one, that could heat up a single room within a minute an burn for a while, so I need an extinguisher quickly or have to seal that room.
4. Scout(BONUS):I'd Imagine it to be cool if a single pawn could use a tool, laser-pointer-weapon or throwable torch to mark a target. When artillery shoots on that target, precision ist raised be 500% or something. By this artillery can be countered, killing the scout.
Quote from: Bolgfred on July 24, 2017, 06:25:16 AM
First, split Mortar and Artillery:
Agreed.
Quote from: Bolgfred on July 24, 2017, 06:25:16 AM
1. higher cost/maintain:
2. Reduce firing speed:
3. Make ammo types more relevant:
4. Scout(BONUS):
I agree to this, but nr.2 gives does not sit right with me, it sounds reasonable because of the greater strength that the artillerie pieces will gain, but i still think they are slow enough allready. What I could agree on would be making them half as fast but make them shoot salvos of 3.
And while reading your suggestions I was thinking of how it could be modded allready.
This leaves me with a final question : does someone know if the forced miss radius is still hardcoded or if it can be reduced ?
I realise mortars can be really overpower vs large tribals assaults
I have got 10 mortars, in a 3 years cassandra extrem game.
I easy destroy the tribals with it. If they don't attack immediately i destroy them so hard they retreat before reaching the base.
It's less efficient if they don't wait, but still helpfull.
It's not because of the mortar op on itself, but large tribes are packed when numerous. A good aim shell can hit 10 or 20 ennemies ...
They should spread a bit when many to rebalance the thing.